Extraction of petroleum on land or in the sea, its transport by sea or overland and its transfer and handling in refineries and on loading and discharging frequently give rise to an appreciable deterioration of the environment caused by leakages or accidents, pollution of marine or terrestrial regions being caused sporadically or continuously on account of petroleum hydrocarbons.
Various methods aimed at combating these causes of environmental contamination are known. Some methods are very basic, employing various surfactant chemical products in an effort to emulsify the petroliferous products in the water, relying on various natural bacteria which may exist in the region to degrade the hydrocarbons. However, this does not assure complete degradation, apart from which the time needed for the outcome to be reasonably acceptable can, in the best of cases, be excessively long.
Other, more truly biological methods employ various strains of microorganisms for the regeneration of marine or terrestrial regions polluted with hydrocarbons.
In EP 007,742 (1981), Pseudomonas strains are used, artificially modified so that they exhibit accelerated growth, developed in culture media to which hydrocarbons are added. However, this method is poorly effective in the decomposition of pollution with highly concentrated products, and generally requires long periods of time.
EP 0,289,350 (1988) employs Pseudomonas putida F 1 for the decomposition of hydrocarbons, but the method is suited specifically to the decomposition of halogenated hydrocarbons, but not to petroliferous hydrocarbons.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,822,490 specifically employs Pseudomonas putida 36, in the form of bacterial compositions also containing inorganic salts, to degrade petroliferous pollutions. However, this method is not equally effective in combating diverse petroliferous pollutions, especially in sea water.